I’m sure that half the stories that have sprung up about him – let alone from him – are apocryphal, but we have to give the man our grudging admiration; he had style, he had flair, he had balls. Most of all, in my book, he had imagination. What else could account for his lightning-quick responses, his instantaneous and carefree reversals of logic in the face of imminent destruction? When asked what he thought of the American forces massed around Baghdad Airport, he said that the Americans were simply "preparing to surrender." When his American counterparts presented charts purporting to chronicle the downfall of Saddam, he claimed that the presenter was "holding the chart upside down."
As something of a PR man myself, I thought – seriously now – that Iraq’s best strategy would have been to emphasize how battered and helpless the country was, and how its army stood absolutely no chance against the invader’s massive and state-of-the-art firepower. In other words, show up America for the bully that it was. But no. Sahhaf kept vowing to slaughter the infidels to the end, blithely denying the obvious and the inevitable. Any hope that we were going to get the unadulterated facts from the other side was dashed from Day One, and between American doublespeak and Iraqi fantasy, the truth took a pounding from which it has yet to recover. At least Sahhaf had entertainment value, which could not be said of his American counterparts, especially the dour Gen. Vincent Brooks, who can make the multiplication table sound exciting – by comparison.
Talking into a mike has been on my mind a lot these days, not in the least because, starting next month, I’m taking on a new (or I should say another) job as, in effect, my university’s spokesman. While the University of the Philippines rarely resembles a war zone these days – unlike the campus I stepped into more than 30 years ago, when the place was often, literally, a riot – it occasionally gets embroiled in controversy, some of which is productive and some of which is not.
Productive controversy attends the consideration of new academic programs and administrative initiatives; destructive controversy results from ignorance, self-interest, and plain meanness getting the better of otherwise reasonable and reasonably intelligent people. My job will be to help define and promote the university’s interest at all times, in all public venues, including the media, Congress, and our own internal constituency – faculty, students, workers, administrators, and campus residents. In other words, I’ll be dealing with everyone from senators to squatters – of whom my newly acquired diplomatic skills inhibit me from making any invidious comparisons.
Before my official appointment comes through and I start sounding like I’m speaking through a tin can, let me exhale a few statements by way of convincing myself (and my bosses) that I did the right thing by saying yes.
First, a spokesman’s job isn’t – and should never be – to lie, but to help establish the truth and then to make the best of it; to contribute to optimism and resolve, rather than to apathy and incapacity. I don’t think I can do a Sahhaf even if I wanted to; if I see hordes of squatters – er, informal settlers – ringing the Diliman campus, I’m not going to say that all these fine people are "just waiting to pack up and leave." (And why do I know this? Because we were squatters ourselves for years, in Old Balara, raising a hog in the bathroom, although we did eventually pack up and leave.) My personal disposition comes closer to that of the morose Gen. Brooks, truth to tell, so I need to work on my lip-curling.
Second, a spokesman should be a paragon of patience and equanimity, qualities I don’t possess in glorious abundance, so I’m going to use the Holy Week (just over by the time you read this) to practice turning the other cheek. I promise to smile benignly in the face of incoming tomatoes, patent idiocy, and rabid rage, and to grab my right hand with my left when it starts itching to do something nasty like punching – hmmm, maybe not noses but keyboards.
Third, a spokesman should act, well, spokesmanlike, which is to say, since you represent an institution, you better not go anywhere or do anything that might embarrass the institution. I guess that takes care of walking around Barangay Central in a tattered T-shirt, puruntong shorts, and the slippers I got for Christmas in 1985. I shall endeavor to avoid crawling home on all fours at three in the morning from some establishment of dubious academic worth. I promise to throw away any sock with a hole (and its mate as well), and to carry a fresh hankie in my pocket every morning (you never know when you’ll need to mop your brow). I’m buying a year’s supply of breath freshener and ingest enough to blast the back of the briefing room, and I’ll make sure to wash my hands and not just rub my fingernails on the hem of my barong the next time I tackle bagoong. When I go out to well-lit, wholesome, and smoke-free karaoke bars with carefully chosen friends, I will stop singing depressing, defeatist ditties like Here’s That Rainy Day and The Party’s Over, and bring along a minus-one of UP Naming Mahal – the carillon version of which I will also have in MP3 to play at my leisure any old time of day.
If you think that’s a joke, let me say that you’re being spoken to by a boy who was probably changed for life when his mom – the only UP graduate in a brood of 13 – put him to sleep by playing a 78 rpm record of UP Beloved and woke him up with Push On, UP on the flipside. Look what you did, Ma – and wish me luck!
According to writer and publicist Dinna Louise Dayao, the event has grown by leaps and bounds, drawing 500 riders in 1999 and trebling that to 1,500 last year. The Firefly Brigade puts biking and environmentalism together, and they take their name from the sad fact that fireflies have become few and far between in our smog-shrouded metropolis. The biking is a way not only of keeping fit but also of underscoring the need for clean, breathable air. For more details about Sunday’s bike tour and the group’s other activities, check out this URL http://www.fireflybrigade.org/about1.html or call Dinna at 0917-4629132.
I’d join you guys, but this forces me to admit that I’m one of those people who can’t get on a bike unless someone else holds the darn thing still, and who keel over to one side or other after a few screwy spins of the wheel. But have a great time, and see you at the finish line.
"Another reason I’m writing is to tell the sad story of Batch [Elizabeth S. Hermoso], whose book – Poems from a Schizophrenic – Giraffe Books published in March 2002. Actually, that was the fourth book I published for Batch, since back in 1991, when I was still with New Day Publishers as its director, we published her three children’s books – The Chair, The Smartian, and Fireworks in the Sky. I suspected that she came from a wealthy family because at the time New Day could hardly afford to equip itself with computers, she already owned her own Macintosh equipment. Anyway, I lost sight of her for about a decade until she came knocking on my door to ask if Giraffe Books would be interested in publishing her collection of poetry which she originally titled A Tribute to Crazy People Everywhere. After going through her poems, I told her yes, I was interested, but that we should change the title to Poems from a Schizophrenic, and could she help me sell copies of the 500-copy print run. I told her that she had writing, though raw, talent, and her poetry might help other families with a schizophrenic member and society at large to understand the condition.
"Before 2002 was over, the day after Christmas, Batch was gone. She, her mother, and their driver were killed on their way to Baguio in a vehicular accident. I have memories of Batch calling me any time of the night (she knew I was a night owl), just for a short chat and to touch base. Sometimes she would feel suicidal, and talking to somebody who loved to give her humongous hugs (what we call in our own family "an ocean of a hug") could tide her over. She made beautiful wax figures; on my crowded Giraffe table is a very beautiful pink wax dog with a lovely and gentle expression in its face, which she had made for me. Come to think of it, the lovely and gentle expression on my dog’s face are the qualities of Batch’s spirit. Rest in God’s arms, my friend Batch! I miss you."